Inox plans to invest Rs 200 cr, add 60 screens in FY17

The company will fund this through a mix of debt and equity. While the debt component will be Rs 120 crore (Rs 1.2 billion), the equity contribution will be Rs 80 crore (Rs 800 million).

“In addition to 1 property, 5 screens and 617 seats (already opened), we expect to open another 12 properties, 54 screens and 10,786 seats this financial year,” Inox Leisure director and group head Deepak Asher told analysts during a conference call.

“The total capex that we intend to incur on this pipeline at least for 2016-17 is roughly Rs 200 crore, which would be funded essentially by 60:40 debt equity. So, the debt required will be about Rs 120 crore and equity about Rs 80 crore,” he added.

Inox will operate 479 screens through 120 properties across India by 2016-17.

Even as the multiplex industry has seen a wave of acquisitions, Asher believes that there is still room for further inorganic growth.

“If we look at how the multiplex industry is structured, there are about 2,100 screens in the country today, of which about 1,500 belong to the four large chains, which are PVR, Inox, Carnival and Cinepolis, which means there are about 600-700 screens that belong to others. This translates into 30 per cent of screen population that belong to what we call the regional chains, chains which do not have a national presence,” Asher said.

Inox will continue to acquire if deals come at the right price, he added.

The multiplex space has been seeing a consolidation wave in the last couple of years. While in July 2014 Inox acquired Satyam Cineplexes, Carnival, after acquiring HDIL’s Broadway, snapped up Anil Ambani-owned Big Cinemas and Network18’s Stargaze in a quick succession. In January last year, Mexican multiplex chain operator Cinepolis fully acquired Essel Group’s Fun Cinemas.